


Forgiveness is a Four Letter Word

by supercali_expiali



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Book Events, Sappy, or something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 00:06:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18109280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercali_expiali/pseuds/supercali_expiali
Summary: It was six years since Crowley disappeared.“Adieu, angel,” he had said as he exited the shop. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”Life goes on.





	Forgiveness is a Four Letter Word

**Author's Note:**

> tbh I don't know if this is finished but I found it on an old flashdrive and here we are

It was six years since Crowley disappeared.

“Adieu, angel,” he had said as he exited the shop. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Aziraphale didn’t see him tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the one after that. But that was normal, Crowley always did have a problem with remembering plans. He claimed it was a demon thing to keep the Adversary, that is to say Aziraphale, on his toes. Aziraphale secretly suspected it had more to do with the demon’s fear of commitment.

Life went on, as was its nature.

Aziraphale updated the store’s shelving system in such a way that any intrepid customer would see the least attractive volumes first. It was really an excuse to lock the door for a week, as a new record store next door was beginning to draw quite the scene. Be-bopping hooligans, the lot of them, if they asked Aziraphale. But of course, there was nobody to ask Aziraphale anything.

He spent most of the week with a bottle of wine in hand. Getting sloshed wasn’t nearly as fun without his (im)mortal enemy.

After three months, he found himself engaging in conversation with one unwelcome customer. To his absolute horror, he didn’t find the experience completely repulsive. As soon as he convinced the customer to come back another day (“ _Surely,_ my dear, I will have the book for you by then.”) he closed up shop and popped over to Lower Tadfield for a quick visit.

Apparently, his “popping” had interfered with the cosmic energy Anathema was trying to harness at the time and she was less than happy to see him. He stayed for passive aggressive tea.

Aziraphale took a stroll around Hyde Park, passing on a subtle heavenly influence when he could. His methods had always been less flamboyant than Crowley’s, but they got the job done, thank you very much. More out of habit than anything, he stuck a coin to the pavement as a favor for his Adversary as per their Arrangement.

He wondered if the Arrangement still applied when his counterpart disappeared to another dimension, and if it didn’t, for what reason did he condone the spread of low-grade evil?

The messages Aziraphale left on Crowley’s ansaphone piled up to the point that Aziraphale had to go to the demon’s apartment to delete them just so he could add more. Crowley’s plants were dead. Aziraphale tossed them out with the air of a man attending the funeral of a friend’s distant relative and went out to buy something green. He chose an aloe plant with a tenacious personality that would stand a chance against Crowley’s gardening methods of choice.

He had sex for the first time in three hundred years. It was messier than he remembered.

He stopped by to water the plant every now and then. By the time the aloe plant had grown and sprouted several offspring, he noticed that the dust had lost its fear of the apartment’s demonic presence and dared to settle over Crowley’s fashionably minimalist furniture that by then was several seasons out of date. The observation inexplicably put him in such a foul mood that the entire city of London endured for months what television shrinks began calling a “social depression.”

They were wrong, of course. But they were, as the saying goes, only human.

Only two mortals on Earth guessed what was going on. One was Tadfield’s resident witch. The other was the being formally known as the Antichrist.

And then, nearly six years to the day, Crowley walked up to Aziraphale’s park bench and sat down as if he’d never left.

“Hi,” said the demon. Aziraphale blinked. Blinked again. Then turned back to the ducks swimming toward Crowley with hunger in their beady little eyes. Served him right for always feeding the ducks when there was clearly a sign warning against just that.

“Hello,” said the angel.

“Nice weather we’re having.”

“Yes, it’s been quite unseasonably warm.”

They sat a moment more, before a businessman with the world on his shoulders passed by looking ripe for the tempting. Crowley stood and it was business as usual. Aziraphale didn’t know if he felt disappointed or relieved.

A few days later Crowley stumbled into Aziraphale’s shop well passed closing time, smelling of orange juice and tequila. He sprawled over the counter in such a proprietorial way that Aziraphale had to roll his eyes in the general direction of Above.

“I heard your messages,” Crowley slurred, hissing slightly as he was wont to do after drinking himself silly. “Plantsss are nice too. Cactus, right?”

“Aloe, I believe,” Aziraphale replied neutrally, grabbing a stack of books and heading to the back room. Crowley followed in a zigzag path.

“It’s a good… cactus thing, really.”

“You’re drunk, my dear,” Aziraphale said, not unkindly. It wasn’t his nature to be frigid to an old nemesis. Crowley’s brow creased in confusion, his mouth making a small ‘o’ shape. He shook himself violently, like a wet dog, and his mouth stretched into that familiar serpentine grin. It was a little shaky, as though his muscles weren’t used to that particular expression.

“There, sober as a…” he realized mid-simile that his knowledge on sobriety was incomplete. “Well, as something, I suppose.” Crowley reached out, then thought better of it, and used that hand to adjust his sunglasses.

“Do you want anything to eat?” Aziraphale set down his books next to the only chair at the table and sat down.

Crowley followed suit, sitting across from the angel with the expectation that the space beneath him would support him. He did not quite miracle anything into existence, but from a certain angle it would appear that the very shadows of the room had condensed into a kind of crude stool beneath him.

“I’m not sure I have a stomach for it anymore.”

A pause. “How unfortunate.”

Crowley shrugged, as if missing a vital organ was the same as forgetting the dry-cleaning. “It happens.” He ran a hand through his slicked back hair and then gestured back toward the storefront. “You changed things out there. Looks nice.”

“One of my customer’s suggested the chairs. He says they give the store a more welcoming aura,” Aziraphale said to the empty space just above Crowley’s right ear. “I’m thinking about getting a store cat.”

“Angel, you hate cats. You said they were devoid of morality.”

“I love all His creatures,” Aziraphale said diplomatically. “But I admit it was Anathema’s idea. She thinks it will dissuade some mortals from coming in at all.”

“Very clever,” Crowley blinked. He had never thought six years could matter in the grand scheme of things. Time passed so quickly. He stood up suddenly, then forgot why he had moved at all.

“Crowley?”

“Yes, angel?” Crowley realized Aziraphale was right there in front of him. Looking at him like he’d figured something out.

The angel smiled then, just a little bit.

The kiss was soft, not quite chaste, but not nearly as violent as Crowley was used to. The demon froze, paralyzed by the knowledge of whose lips were teasing his own. He felt something wet and burning like acid, and realized the angel was crying. Without meaning to, Crowley gently wrapped his arms around Aziraphale, giving as much comfort as he could from the bottom of the black pit where his soul should be.

“Oh, angel,” Crowley said sadly, parting the kiss with a slight shake of his head. “You really shouldn’t have done that.” Aziraphale nodded, his eyes refusing to meet Crowley’s, then rested his head on the demon’s shoulder. Angel tears were already burning his skin, which was hardly comfortable, but still Crowley refused to move.

“You were gone,” said Aziraphale after a brief millennia. “Below.”

“Yes.”

Another pregnant pause. “Did they hurt you?”

Crowley choked out a laugh. “What do you think?” Aziraphale didn’t say anything in response, but did tighten his hold on Crowley. “I missed you too,” Crowley whispered in a tone of voice he had never used with Aziraphale before.

Aziraphale mumbled something almost inaudible into Crowley’s shoulder. The demon winced, as if he felt the words rather than heard them.

“Don’t,” he said firmly. “Don’t say that.”

Aziraphale said it again, just as quietly, “I forgive you.”

Crowley smiled, despite the instinctual urge to hiss and flee. “That’s your job, angel.” He wiped the residual wetness from Aziraphale’s cheeks. It burned something awful.

When Aziraphale kissed him again he was ready for it. And it felt like Falling. 


End file.
